Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

Some omens are loud. So bear with me in these hours of silence. They have hidden notes wrapped up in hidden stories that turn hearts to stone. Our hearts are full of stone. They look too like dancers dis-inherited in the middle of a dance, hanging with their lame foot in the air, like a hen oblivious to the moment they are caught. They forgot some of us are made of gold. Some of us know fire. We know too when the sun rises. We say set and it obeys.

We made a dramatic descent the other day. Landing with our backs on the ground as if in a trance. Of all places our back touched Ani. Then we remembered. Even ani ka mmadu. We have been here before. With our backs to the ground. Just think, had you written the story. Even if you knew how it began, our backs would forever know the ground. After that fateful September day, everyone by now must know that the story belongs to the one who first wrote it no matter what anyone plans. Record your one sided story. We wrote the story. It’s has always been our story and we know the source of its beginning, we know cause of the end. We will end it too just so we protect our peace and name. It’s our story. Hate it, write your own. Until you learn to write your own story, know we are finally perfectly wild like the ether we are… Try us…

I saw this description of my go to bible and description of my life in academia and decided to write the above. We are like ether with our stories. We learnt from the best. We were told from day 1 to write our own stories beyond the western paradigm. Write them to like the lions we are. Imagine on day one, your PhD advisor, turned life advisor, tells you that until the lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify the hunter. As in that is who made us. The story belongs to him too. We have been writing our story from day 1 with him. Try us. Tough times don’t last but tough people do. An entire legion plus the one named Onyelo is behind us…We are ready…we know too that this story, all the ways it has been written was never ever meant to be. We wrote it. We will end it.